


Most Dangerous When It Comes Late In Life

by ratherastory



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: Community: 10_hurt_comfort, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-30
Updated: 2011-05-30
Packaged: 2017-10-20 02:22:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/207755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ratherastory/pseuds/ratherastory
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve gets the measles. Danny steps up. Written for the measles/chicken pox prompt at 10_hurt_comfort.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Most Dangerous When It Comes Late In Life

**Author's Note:**

> Neurotic Author's Note #1: This one got a little away from me, as you can see. Then it languished on my hard drive until I came up with an ending. I wrote this waaaay before most of the events of the second half of the season, so please ignore any and all continuity problems.  
> Neurotic Author's Note #2: Unbeta'd. All errors are mine, including any and all discrepancies when it comes to medical information and facts about Hawaii.

In the eight or so months that they've been partners, not a single day has gone by when Steve McGarrett failed, in one way or another, to make Danny's blood pressure soar until it reaches into numbers bordering on ruptured blood vessel territory. In fact, Danny is pretty sure that one of these days he's just going to keel over dead, possibly with blood leaking out through his ears and nose, and leave his daughter an orphan. Half-orphan. Whatever. And in spite of it all, Steve always managed to remain infuriatingly calm about the whole proceedings.

“Okay, in my defence, the boat would have been long gone if we'd waited for back-up,” he says now, one hand draped casually over the steering wheel of Danny's Camaro, the elbow of his left arm resting on his thigh, hand dangling between his legs even though he's driving at speeds that make the Formula 1 look like a bumper-car race.

Danny throws his hands up in a gesture at once of defeat and irritation. “And you couldn't just let that go, could you, Jet Li? Nooo, you decided that leaping from the top of a whole bunch of shipping containers directly onto the boat was a good plan. A plan that involved me having to run up the main ramp, I might add, directly into the gaping maw of the beast—”

“What does that even mean?”

“It's a metaphor!” Danny makes a vague circular motion with his hand that, in his mind, has always served very well to demonstrate what a metaphor should look like, but Steve is looking at him with his I-Don't-Follow-You Face, and that just pisses him off more. “My point, Steven, is that you very nearly got us both killed! Again! I don't understand why the fact that we have both repeatedly come this close to death,” he brings the palms of his hands together so that they're a fraction of an inch apart, holds them up at eye level to make sure Steve can see him, “doesn't seem to disturb you more than it does.”

“I had the situation under control, Danno.”

“What? I —you had —I can't believe —no,” Danny sputters. “You know what? Just no. I refuse to have this conversation with you.”

“It worked out, didn't it? We saved the victims, the bad guys are behind bars, and we even had a warrant, just the way you wanted. So I figure this one's a win, and I even gave you a compromise,” Steve smirks, and damn but if that doesn't make Danny want to smack the expression right off his face, or possibly lay one on him, but since both of those actions are likely to get him punched into next week, he doesn't do either. Instead he makes another show of throwing his hands into the air.

“It's impossible to talk to you when you're like this.”

“I'm impossible to talk to? Oh, that's rich. You barely let me get a word in edgewise, three-quarters of the time!”

“That was three whole sentences,” Danny points out reasonably. “And I'm right, so that means I get to talk.”

“Who says you were right?” Steve's face scrunches up into something like How Did I Just Lose This Argument Face, and Danny grins, then points ahead.

“Eyes on the road, McGarrett!”

Steve doesn't even turn his head, and neatly sails through a yellow light, making Danny clap both hands over his eyes just in case they do end up dying in a giant fireball. “Lighten up, Danno.”

“Seriously, could you not call me by my daughter's nickname for me when you're actively trying to get me killed? It's doing all sorts of weird things to my head.”

Steve just snorts at that, and pulls the car into its usual spot outside of headquarters. Danny thinks they may have just broken a new land speed record. “You're welcome, by the way.”

“What?” Danny looks over at him, startled, then bails out of the car as soon as he's convinced they're stationary and unlikely to take off again in an unexpected direction.

“I had a very nice time at Grace's school.”

“That was well over a week ago —oh. Oh, I get it,” Danny rolls his eyes, and makes an elaborate gesture of gratitude with his right hand. “Thank you, Steven, for coming with me to Career Day at Gracie's school and allowing fifteen small children to adulate you and develop a frightening brand of hero-worship for you for a whole entire hour.”

“Was that so hard?”

For a second it almost seems like Steve genuinely got his feelings hurt, which is ridiculous. Danny sighs. “No, really, I appreciated it. It was nice of you to come, especially in light of Step-Stan being there with all his impressive millions and trips around the world and fourteen swimming pools or whatever. Mind you, I think the kids are maybe a little too enamoured of fire, now.”

“It was just a small demonstration, and it was perfectly safe.”

“Hey, the teacher allowed it, so I have nothing to say on the matter.”

“Only because you ranted at me for three days about it.”

“I did not rant. I pointed out the myriad ways in which it all could have gone spectacularly wrong. Also, I'm pretty sure my ex-wife found it hot, which is disturbing on so many levels I have lost the ability to count them all.”

“You think Rachel noticed?”

“Oh, fuck you,” Danny says, without any venom. He shakes his head, trying to mask his grin at the memory. “Let's just go in, file the paperwork —which is probably going to take all night, thanks to your little stunt— and I am going to pray that nothing else goes wrong today.”

Of course, because Danny's life is destined to suck in new and impressive ways every day, his prayers don't get answered. Instead, while he's negotiating the intricacies of filling out paperwork, today featuring legal requirements that appear to change every two freaking minutes, the dulcet tones of 'Psycho' blare from his phone. For a moment he's tempted to just hit 'ignore' and pick up the message later, but it's the middle of the week, and that means Rachel probably needs him to pick up Grace early, or maybe take her to an appointment or something, and he's been dodging too many of her calls lately for his own peace of mind.

“Yes, dear,” he doesn't quite bark, but he's got a headache building behind his eyes, and he's pretty sure that Steve is designing a new paper version of a fighter jet out of the forms he should be filling out instead.

“Daniel, how are you?” Rachel's mellifluous tone comes over the phone, and he's immediately suspicious, because she hasn't asked after his well-being in well over a year.

“I'm not quite as good as ten seconds ago before you asked me how I was, in a shocking display of acting out of character. What's wrong?”

“Nothing's wrong. Well, not really wrong. It's just... I have bad news.”

He sits up in his chair. “What is it? It's not Grace, is it?”

“No, Grace is fine. It's just that I have to cancel your weekend with her. I mean, not cancel,” she says hastily just as he's about to explode at her. “Postpone. There's been an outbreak of measles at the school, specifically in her class. Three of the children have come down with it in her class already.”

“Measles?” Danny pinches the bridge of his nose at that. “Didn't we get her vaccinated for that?”

Rachel hesitates, and when she speaks, he's surprised to hear a tremor in her voice. “Well, yes, but I want to keep her home. Some child brought it over from a foreign country, and... I know it's not rational, but I can't help but worry, you know? What if it's something else? Something worse? Or a different strain that she won't be immune to?”

“You think so?” In spite of himself, he can feel her worry start to get to him. The idea of his little girl coming down with... whatever the hell it might be, well, it doesn't bear thinking about.

“It would make me feel better, just to keep her close for a while. Look, I'll make it up to you. You won't lose the weekend, we'll arrange for another one to replace it, I promise. She's really disappointed that she won't be seeing you, and contrary to what you believe, I don't actually take a perverse pleasure in keeping the two of you apart, Daniel.”

“Rachel you —I… Okay, okay, no, I get that. So how long do you... when can I see her again?”

“The outbreak started a week ago,” there's relief on the other end of the line now, “and the diagnosis was only made about four days ago, so it'll be another week or so before we'll know for certain that she's out of danger. You've been vaccinated, right? We were all there for that career thing right when the illness was in its contagious phase.”

“That's just fantastic.” Danny would kill for a beer right about now. “I've had all my shots. I don't know about you, but as far as I'm concerned it's just responsible parenting to get your kids vaccinated for things like, oh I don't know, polio and shit. Didn't think I'd ever be worried about measles, though. This is the problem with idiots who watch too much television and suddenly think their kid is going to develop autism because of an immunisation shot. Which is utter bullshit, all the serious studies have shown that—”

“Daniel.”

“What?”

Rachel sighs. “You really don't need to lecture me on the benefits of vaccinating one's children, nor on the idiocy of parents who don't.”

“Okay, fine. I'm just saying! Anyway, you and Stan are good? I mean, about the measles thing.”

“We're fine. We've both been vaccinated as well. Look, I'll call you if there's anything, all right? And,” she hesitates a fraction of a second, “of course you can call Grace as often as you'd like until you see her.”

“I do that anyway.”

“Yes, well...”

It's an olive branch, and he'd be stupid to pick a fight now. “Okay, thanks Rach. I appreciate the heads-up, and I guess when it's over I'll get her two weekends in a row. Sound good?”

“It does sound fair. I'll make sure Stan knows, and we'll hash out the details next week. Good-bye, Daniel.”

“Bye, Rachel.”

He puts the phone down, looks up to see Steve leaning in his doorway, arms folded over his chest, his expression softened by that odd half-smile he sometimes gets when he thinks Danny's not looking at him. Danny hasn't figured out if it's a private joke at his expense, or if it's just the way Steve's face gets when he's forgetting to be a stoic ninja SEAL and lets actual human emotion register on his features. Okay, that last bit was harsh, Danny chides himself, and Steve would be perfectly justified in telling him so. Just because his partner isn't in the habit of vocalizing his feelings doesn't mean he doesn't have them. If anything, Danny's learned to read Steve's emotions all too well over the past few months, and it wouldn't be a stretch for Steve to point out that just because Danny's having a bad day... he frowns as he notes the sudden change in Steve's expression.

“What?”

“You just had an entire conversation with me in your head, didn't you?” Steve says, eyes crinkling in amusement.

He tilts his head. “Okay, maybe.”

“Did I win that argument, by any chance?”

“I think it was a draw. What's up?”

“I heard your phone. Everything okay?”

Danny shrugs, flaps a hand at his phone, and manages to give a pretty succinct explanation of just how much more his day is sucking now. “And the worst part, of course, is that it's not even anyone's fault. Shit just happens, and I happen to be permanently rooted to the spot right in front of the fan.”

Steve's expression scrunches up into Sympathy Face. “I'm sorry.”

“Yeah, so am I. But Rachel's being civilized about the whole thing, and she's letting me have Grace two weeks in a row afterward to make up for it, so I can't exactly complain.”

“And yet, here you are.”

Danny glares. “You're hilarious. Seriously, you should take your show on the road. Far away from me.” He ignores Kicked Puppy Face, because Steve totally deserved that.

“You want to kick off for the night? I don't know about you, but I want to drown that paperwork in a six-pack of Longboards.”

“That is the first good idea you've had all day,” Danny tosses aside his pen, tucks his phone into his pocket, and shoves his chair back. “I'm right behind you, Fearless Leader. Show me the way to the beer.”

For all that it's been a pretty crappy day, a couple of beers go a long way to making it a whole lot less crappy. Chin and Kono are in a really good mood, and they spend the whole evening telling tales out of school, some of which have Steve throwing balled-up napkins at Chin's head in a failed attempt to make him stop, and by the end of it all Danny's laughing so hard his ribs hurt. The tension and disappointment fade away, and he has to remind himself to stop drinking once he starts on his third —and definitely last— beer of the evening, especially when he catches sight of Steve starting to fade where he's sitting. Chin and Kono are a bit more subdued now, talking quietly to each other, but Steve suddenly looks wrecked, slumped in his chair, elbow on the arm rest, head propped up on his fist. He has bags under his eyes that Danny doesn't remember seeing there before, his expression slightly strained, as though it's an effort to stay awake.

Danny gets up, abandoning his bottle while it's still nearly full, gives him a friendly pat on the knee. “Okay, bedtime for Bonzo. Come on, Rambo, even tough army types need sleep every so often.”

“It's the Navy,” Steve corrects automatically, but Danny can tell his heart isn't in it, and that sort of worries him more than even having Steve leap off the top of a really high stack of shipping containers onto a boat filled with armed opponents.

“You okay?” he asks, nudging him back toward the car.

Steve nods, slides into the passenger seat without even trying for the driver's side, and damn but if that doesn't make Danny worry even more. “Just tired.”

“Yeah, okay. Good night's sleep, and you'll be right as rain in the morning,” Danny says, and wonders who he's trying to convince more: Steve or himself. He drops Steve off at his house, watches as he makes his way slowly up his porch stairs and through his front door, and stays long after the door has closed and all the lights have been switched off before reluctantly heading home.

Steve calls in sick the next day.

“Did hell freeze over while I wasn't looking?” Danny asks when Kono tells him the news. “Steve McGarrett called in sick? Steve? McGarrett?”

Kono shrugs. “Said he had the flu or something, and that he'll be in tomorrow.”

Danny drums his fingers against his desk top, trying not to feel as though his entire world has been flipped upside-down and dropped him on his head. Steve is meant to be indestructible, not to get the flu and call in sick. It's ridiculous, he tells himself, Steve is just a guy like anyone else. Sure, he's a guy who knows ten languages, six different types of hand-to-hand combat, and can apparently re-inflate a man's lung in the field using nothing but a twig, but he's just a guy nonetheless, and everyone gets sick now and then.

“It's just weird,” Kono says, echoing his thoughts, and he grins uneasily.

“I know, right?” He sighs. “Right. Well, let's get some actual police work done here while McGarrett isn't around to sabotage us by flying choppers into buildings and blowing up warehouses.”

“Yeah, okay.”

But the day seems to go on forever, and it's almost a relief when Steve drags himself into work the next day. Almost a relief, because he’s a sweaty, congested, feverish mess. He looks like hell, and Danny's the first to tell him so when he finds him leaning on his desk with one hand and coughing miserably into his clenched fist.

“Seriously, you're so convinced we can't manage a day without you here that you come in looking like something the stray cats outside my apartment puked up?”

Steve glares, but it lacks his usual intensity. In fact, his gaze is rather glassy, his eyes red and watering slightly. “Got work to do, Danny.”

“Nothing that can't have waited another day or so. You look like warmed-over crap. You got a fever?” He reaches for Steve's forehead, ignoring his partner's insulted-looking attempt to fend him off. “Give me a break, McGarrett, your virtue is safe with me. Jesus, you’re burning up. How long have you had that fever?”

“Since early yesterday,” Steve admits after a second’s hesitation. Whatever else you can say about the guy, he’s always been honest with Danny. “Maybe late the day before? But it’s not that bad.”

“Not that bad, my ass. You're going home. Actually, no, scratch that, _I_ am _driving_ you home, because I honestly don't know how you're even upright with a fever that high.”

Steve stifles a cough, pulls a tissue out of the pocket of his cargo pants and wipes ineffectually at his nose. “I'm fine,” he insists, just before a coughing fit belies his words.

“Yeah, see, no. Your definition of fine is clearly not the one that appears in any known dictionary. For one,” Danny starts ticking off points on his fingers, “healthy people don’t cough that much. For two, you’re running a fever that I can feel with my hands. For three, you’ve got a wicked-looking case of pink eye, in case you hadn’t noticed. There’s nothing going on today. None of us has received a call, which means you need to go home and take it easy and not come to the office and spread your contagion around, which is just plain irresponsible and inconsiderate, to boot. Nobody in this office wants your cooties, McGarrett.”

“First off, only five-year-olds say ‘cooties,’” Steve musters an air of injured dignity. “And anyway, I’m going to stay in my office. If you don’t come in, you won’t catch what I have.”

“Not the point. I realize that you think you’re indestructible or whatever, babe, but the truth is you’re human –even if you’re a weird, souped-up version of what passes for human in the rest of us.” Danny nimbly steps up and catches Steve by an elbow before he can jerk away, and begins steering him back toward the front door. “That means that when you get the flu, you take a few days off and trust your team to take care of things and to call you if you’re absolutely needed.”

Kono is hovering none-too-subtly outside the door to Steve’s office. “You going home, boss?”

“Yes, he is,” Danny says, just as Steve replies “No, I’m not,” and so Danny matches him, glare for glare.

“Danny’s right,” Kono points out to Steve, and Danny has to make a special effort not to look too smug, lest it drive Steve to an even bigger fit of mule-headedness. “You’ll just make yourself worse and then you’ll miss even more work.”

“Are you going to deny the rookie’s logic?”

Steve just sighs and rolls his eyes, which Danny chooses to interpret as victory, and doesn’t protest when Danny leads the way to his car. He doesn’t even try to get in the driver’s side —the second time in a row— which is probably a very good indication of just how crappy he actually feels. In retrospect, Danny should have figured out right away that he was feeling under the weather.

“You got any kind of meds for this at home?” he asks, and his partner shrugs.

“Got some Aspirin, I think.”

“Okay, so we’re going to make a couple of quick stops first. You,” he points at Steve’s chest with an index finger, “stay in the car.”

“Not a dog, Danno.”

“No, you’re not, which is why I didn’t offer you a treat if you were a good boy. It’ll go faster if I’m alone without you trailing behind me like a wheezing ghost.”

“I don’t _trail_ ,” Steve starts, then breaks off in another coughing fit. When it passes he simply lets his head fall back against the headrest, and no more mention is made of his getting out of the car at all.

It’s just lucky for Steve that Danny happens to be one of the most awesome fathers on the planet. He’s been through more than his share of colds and flus and stomach upsets, and therefore is something of an expert on what’s needed to weather this exact sort of crisis. He stops at the drugstore first and the grocery store second, stocks up in record time, and returns to find Steve dozing uncomfortably exactly where he left him. Moving more quietly than he would otherwise, he drops his purchases in the back seat, and takes a moment to look at his sleeping partner. Steve looks younger like that, open and a little vulnerable the way he never is when he’s awake, and Danny has to fight a sudden impulse to reach over and smooth his hair a bit.

Instead he hits the gas, and marvels at the fact that Steve doesn’t so much as twitch until they’re parked right outside his house. Danny gives his arm a little shake. “Come on, Sleeping Beauty. You’ll be better-rested in your own bed instead of the front seat of my car.”

Steve comes awake with a start, then rubs blearily at his eyes with the fingers of either hand before letting himself out of the car. He stumbles a bit, but compensates right away, and Danny pretends not to have noticed, figuring he needs to pick his battles. He gathers his purchases out of the back seat while Steve disables the alarm system in the house, then carries them to the kitchen and sets them down on the counter while his partner follows close on his heels, looking strangely at a loss.

“Okay, sit,” Danny tells him, then goes to investigate the contents of Steve’s fridge. It’s not as bad as he feared. He was worried that he might only find spinach and wheat germ, but Steve appears to have enough in there for the makings of soup and other things that are generally good for you when you’re sick. “There’s ibuprofen and stuff for your throat, and I bought you some of the really awesome tissues with lotion. Trust me, you will be thankful I did when you’re blowing your nose for the millionth time and don’t feel like you’re scraping off your skin with sandpaper.” He sets down a glass of orange juice in front of Steve, who’s slumped on a stool and leaning on the counter with both elbows. “Drink up, babe, it’ll make your throat feel better.”

Steve glares at the juice as though it's personally responsible for all his troubles. “I never get sick,” he complains.

“I bet even Batman gets the flu now and then. And you're welcome. Really, don't mention it.” Sometimes, it's hard to let go of the sarcasm. Danny watches Steve like a hawk, just in case he’s one of those infuriating people who only pretends to take his pills, but Steve obligingly tilts the bottle and shakes out two pills which he swallows without so much as making a face. “Okay. Bed or couch?”

Steve shrugs. “I was going to–”

“If the sentence that comes out of your mouth involves the word ‘work’ in any way, I don’t want to hear it. You get two choices: nap in your bed, or lie on your couch and either nap or watch TV if you don’t want to sleep.”

“It’s my house, Danny, I can do what I w–” Steve coughs painfully into the crook of his elbow.

“It might be your house, but until you start speaking sense you don’t get a vote. Have another glass of juice, I can practically feel you dehydrating from here,” Danny steps up behind him and presses a hand to his forehead, frowning as he realizes Steve’s fever has worsened, even measuring just by feel. The gesture merits him an irritated snort. “Don’t be a baby, Steven. Drink your juice, strip and go to bed.”

“Strip?” Steve sounds horrified, as though Danny has just suggested he perform a burlesque show on the spot, complete with can-can and feather boa.

Danny rolls his eyes. “Or stay in your work clothes, for all I care. You’ll just be more comfortable if you shed at least one layer.” Steve doesn’t move, though, just stares at him as though he’s grown an extra head. Danny blushes a little, but tells himself it’s desperate times, which means he’ll just have to man up. “Fine. Since you’re obviously not going to do it by yourself…”

He nudges him out of the kitchen, chivvies him up the stairs since Steve doesn’t appear to be about to make a decision on his own anytime soon, and sits him down on the bed. There’s one thing to be said about military organisation skills, they make things very easy to find. He pulls out a pair of sweatpants and a comfortable-looking t-shirt, and drops them in Steve’s lap. Steve looks down at the clothes, then back up at him, blinking a little stupidly, until Danny sighs quietly and simply pulls his shirt up and over his head, determinedly not admiring the expanse of tattooed skin and toned muscle that he’s just revealed.

“You can take off your own pants, thank you very much,” he says, regretting that it’s coming out crankier than he intended. He deliberately softens his tone. “Come on, I know you feel crappy, but I guarantee you’ll feel better the minute you’re changed and lying down.”

It takes a little more coaxing and nudging, because apparently once Steve’s defences are down they’re completely down and he pretty much stops functioning, but Danny gets him settled in bed, from where Steve watches him with fever-bright eyes that seem to have grown to twice their usual size. He drops Steve’s sweaty clothes into a laundry hamper he finds in one corner of the room and digs out a thermometer from the bathroom. He makes Steve swallow more Advil when he finds his temperature hovering at 103 degrees and sets a glass of water and the bottle of pills by the bed.

“I’m going to make soup, get you set up here, and then I’ll head out back to the office. But you can call me on my cell phone if you need anything, okay?”

Steve doesn’t answer, gaze firmly fixed in his lap, but he does give a small nod, and Danny figures it’s a good a victory as any. He heads to the kitchen, busies himself chopping whatever vegetables he can fish out of Steve’s crisper that seem like they’ll make a good addition to chicken broth, and just about jumps out of his skin when he turns to find Steve standing in the doorway, watching him quietly. He’s wearing the t-shirt and sweatpants he went to bed in, his feet bare, and obviously just got out of bed and went directly to the kitchen.

“You okay? Need anything? You could have yelled,” Danny waggles the soup ladle accusingly at him as his pulse returns to normal.

Steve shrugs, hugging his arms to himself. “No, I’m good.” He shivers a little, and comes back to sit on the stool he was occupying before.

“Then why are you up?”

Another shrug. “Not tired.” It’s a blatant lie, and Danny will be damned if he can figure out just what the hell is eating at his partner. “Thought I’d keep you company, while you’re here.”

“Except that you’re about to keel over from fever. I don’t need the company nearly as much as you need the rest.”

“It’s not that bad.” Steve’s making Kicked Puppy Face again, and damn if that doesn’t do terrible things to Danny’s heart rate.

“You’re about one quarter of a degree of fever away from my taking you to a clinic. That’s bad in my books,” Danny deliberately turns back to the stove starts stirring the soup, lowering the heat before it scorches and sticks to the bottom of the pan.

Steve props his chin in his hands on the counter. “You making soup from scratch?” He actually sounds impressed, before he breaks into another coughing fit.

Danny pours him a glass of water as he stirs the soup, trying to figure out what of Steve's meagre spice collection he can use to make it more interesting. He settles on dried parsley. At least it’s keeping him from thinking far more inappropriate things. “Mostly. I cheated and used broth cubes. My mother would disown me if she knew. Okay, seriously, what will it take for you to go lie down and rest like a normal person?”

“I’m normal,” Steve mutters mutinously into his hands. “I don’t know why you keep insisting I’m not. There’s nothing wrong with me.”

He actually sounds kind of hurt, much to Danny’s surprise. “Hey, come on,” he softens his tone, reminds himself that Steve is feeling shitty and will be bordering on delirium anyway if his fever goes any higher. “You know that’s not how I meant it. If you don’t want to lie in your nice, comfy bed, how about the couch? I’ll find you a nice soap opera that you can ignore or make fun of, and by that time the soup will be ready.”

After a while Danny starts to feel like he’s trapped in a weird comedy of errors. Every time he thinks he’s finally gotten Steve to stay put, the guy is up again like a feverish jack-in-the-box, following him around the house like a puppy without a mother. It’s actually kind of cute, in a disturbing way, right up until Danny’s standing in the doorway ready to leave, and finds Steve still less than ten feet away. He looks more than a little lost, staring at the floor like if he looks long enough it might provide answers to some imponderable question, and that’s when the epiphany hits like the proverbial ton of bricks: Steve doesn’t want to be left alone. It’s a big house, and there are still bleach stains where they scrubbed his father’s blood out of the floor, the walls fileld with photographs of his family, of his dead mother and his absent sister, and if it were Danny he sure as hell wouldn’t want to be alone with all that and nothing but a fever to keep him company. It’s no wonder Steve is always trying to keep busy, no wonder he dragged himself to work even when he was half-dead. He probably nearly went stir-crazy after a day by himself with nothing but this all around him.

“Jesus, McGarrett,” Danny makes a show of steering him back toward the couch, gently shoves him down on it, then drops down beside him, kicking off his shoes. “Stay put,” he orders him sternly, and pulls out his phone, dialling the office. When Kono answers he allows a hint of false irritation to creep into his voice. “It’s Danny. Your boss is being a pain in the ass and refusing to lie down like a regular human being, so I’m going to stay for a while longer and sit on him until he falls asleep. You guys good to fly solo for the rest of today?”

Kono snorts in a failed attempt to stifle a giggle. “Sure thing, Danny. I bet Steve’s a terrible patient.”

“You’re quite right, he _is_ a terrible patient,” Danny confirms loudly and pointedly, staring at Steve, who has the grace to look sheepish. “Call me if there’s anything.”

“You got it, but there won’t be. You guys are the ones who seem to attract most of the crazy.”

“You don’t know how right you are,” Danny hangs up, rolls his eyes, and pats Steve’s shin. “I am getting you a blanket. I will be _right back_ , so don’t get up and follow me. Just lie there, pretend like you’re going to nap the way I suggested, and I am going to come right back,” he repeats, hoping it’ll somehow convince Steve to heed his words for once.

He locates a blanket, fills a glass with water and tucks a box of tissues under his arm, and snags a beer for himself out of the fridge. He brings all of it back to the living room, and is pleasantly surprised to find that Steve is still there, although he has sat up and is watching Danny a little anxiously, as though he might disappear at any second. Danny drops the blanket over him, tucking it around him as best he can, puts the glass and the tissues on the coffee table, and lets himself plop onto the couch as well.

“Since you’re clearly incapable of getting any rest without a babysitter to watch your every move, I am taking my payment out in beer,” he lifts the bottle to demonstrate. “We are going to watch something mindless until you fall asleep, and you don’t get a vote. This is not a democracy, it’s a benevolent dictatorship. So I hereby claim this small portion of your couch. You get to lie down on the rest of it and sleep. Clear?”

Steve nods –and it’s really pretty cute how extra-specially non-verbal he gets when he’s sick, which furthermore is a thought that Danny should very much not be entertaining right about now– and then to Danny’s everlasting astonishment he curls up right next to him, resting his head against the couch mere inches away from Danny's shoulder, one leg pressed up against him. For a second Danny freezes, rooted to the spot, because this… this is unheard-of. Never in his wildest, weirdest dreams would he have imagined this, not that he hasn’t sort of maybe a little bit indulged in the odd fantasy of cuddling up with Steve (although, admittedly, his fantasies involved Steve being a whole lot healthier than this and a whole lot closer), but it never occurred to him that it might in any way be realistic. He can feel the heat from Steve’s fever even from a few inches away, though, and he feels a pang of sympathy, lets his hand drop gently on Steve’s head, stroking his temple with his thumb.

“Feeling pretty shitty, huh?”

“’s not so bad.” Steve is definitely avoiding his gaze, as though he's embarrassed at being quite this overtly clingy but can't quite help it, either. For a second Danny wonders if this is what he can look forward to when Grace is old enough to feel embarrassed at needing her Dad. He dismisses the thought with a shake of his head, turns back to Steve.

“Liar. C’mere,” he cups the back of Steve's neck with his hand, and tugs. For a split-second he encounters resistance, but his timing seems to be good: Steve's defences are pretty much down, and it doesn't take much before he's practically in Danny's lap, his whole length pressed up against him, overly warm and solid. Steve wriggles a bit until he’s settled more comfortably, and his eyes drift shut. Danny wonders if he hasn’t maybe stepped into an episode of the Twilight Zone, or something.

“You don't have to stay,” Steve mumbles into his lap, and Danny rolls his eyes. “'m fine.”

“Yeah, whatever you say. Get some sleep, while I watch this riveting talk show.”

Steve hums something that sounds vaguely like agreement, and after a few moments he’s breathing evenly, having finally succumbed to the combined pull of sickness, medication, and liberal quantities of soup. Danny leans back against the couch, sips at his beer, and eventually just mutes the television when the shouting gets too loud, worried that it’ll wake Steve, who’s drooling comfortably against his thigh. Apart from the fact that his partner is sick, it’s all pretty nice, he thinks. He’ll take this, since it’s unlikely it’ll ever be more.

Danny’s a pragmatic guy, for the most part. Statistically speaking, there are few guys who swing his way, and while a few people understand the whole sexual identity thing, generally cops aren’t the understanding type. Furthermore, despite the fact that Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell just got repealed about five minutes ago, doesn’t mean that most military types won’t haul back and punch a guy repeatedly before they stop to ask questions. Steve might be his partner and his friend, but the fact of the matter is that he's military, first and foremost, and Danny doesn't really know all that much about his personal beliefs. At worst, doing anything about those feelings he sometimes harbours would be a career-ending move with a side-order of grievous physical harm. At best, it would sour what is probably the best working relationship Danny has ever had in his entire career, and he doesn't know whether to be impressed or depressed by that realization.

In short, there is no compelling reason for Danny to encourage this line of thinking in himself. Steve, by all outward evidence, is straight as the proverbial arrow, and has given no sign whatsoever that he's ever been interested in any gender that doesn't sport breasts. It’s not Steve’s fault that Danny can’t stop his heart from skipping a beat every time Steve gives him one of those goofy grins, or that all his insides twist with irrational terror every time Steve goes off to do something insane and suicidal. Steve is just Steve, and the fact that that is exactly what Danny finds attractive (not to mention that Steve is quite simply drop-dead gorgeous and Danny kind of wants to lick his way from his clavicles all the way down to his delicious-looking hipbones and maybe a little further, even) is not Steve’s doing at all. Danny has never been the type to impose his attentions where they're not wanted, and this doesn't strike him as the time to start. Besides, right now there are more pressing problems, like the fact that Steve is giving the proverbial dog a run for its money and is apparently more pathetic than a Labrador puppy with a broken leg when he's sick.

It's ridiculous, Danny tells himself. Steve is a grown man, a Navy SEAL, and knows fourteen way to break Danny's spine using only his pinky finger and a wad of chewing gum. He does not need saving and certainly does not need coddling when he's sick —except that apparently he kind of does, and damn if that doesn't awaken every single one of Danny's nurturing instincts. Danny comes by them honestly, from both the maternal and paternal lines in his family. The Williamses are worriers by nature, and they like to take care of people by feeding them more than they can ever possibly eat and fussing over them when they're sick. As if on cue, Steve shifts a little and settles closer to him, still fast asleep, tightening his hold on Danny’s leg. Danny sighs and scrubs at his face with the hand that's not currently curled protectively around Steve's shoulder. He is totally, completely screwed.

  


*art is by the lovely **odysseaia**

Oprah is in the middle of explaining something about how having a cluttered house leads to obesity (and how these people even reach that conclusion is beyond even Danny's superior detecting skills) when Steve stirs a little, starts to cough, and immediately pulls away.

“You okay, babe?” Danny tries to ignore the pang of loss he just felt, reaches out to touch Steve gingerly on the shoulder, then changes tactics and hands him the now-tepid glass of water from the table.

Steve swallows a few mouthfuls with a grimace, then nods. “How long was I asleep?”

“A couple of hours. Have some more Advil, you look flushed.”

“I'm fine.”

“You keep saying that, and yet it keeps not being true.” In spite of himself he rubs Steve's back a bit, and can't help but feel pleased when Steve relaxes under his touch. “And as awesome as cuddling on the couch with you has been, I really think you'd sleep better in your own bed.”

Steve stiffens, though so slightly Danny wouldn't have noticed if he didn't already have his hand on Steve's back. “Yeah, okay.”

 

 _Oh, it's like that_ , Danny thinks. Aloud, he makes a point of being obnoxious. “You're seeing reason, excellent. But on the off-chance that you are, in fact, lying to me in order to lull me into a false sense of security about your well-being, I am totally escorting your feverish ass up those stairs and making sure that not only do you get into bed, but that you stay there. For as long as it takes.”

He doesn't miss the small shudder of relief as Steve lets him pull him to his feet, steadying him when it turns out that his legs have kind of gone rubbery. It's a bit of an ordeal to try to get him up the stairs, because even if Steve is in top physical shape with not a single ounce of excess fat on him, there's still over six feet of well-muscled McGarrett to manhandle, and while Danny himself is not exactly a lightweight, he isn't really built for this sort of thing. Still, Steve is lucid enough to grab the banister and try to help a little bit, even if he's dizzy and not quite tracking what's going on. Danny settles him back on his bed without too much fuss, and convinces him to take some more Advil and drink a lot more water before trying to go back to sleep.

Predictably enough, Steve fights going to sleep with every single scrap of energy left in his body, until Danny just gives up and sits on the bed next to him. “I told you I was going to stay here and make sure you sleep, and that's exactly what I aim to do now. Quit squirming and learn to live with it, McGarrett.”

Steve looks guilty at that, and if that doesn't amplify the Labrador-puppy-with-a-broken-leg look by about a million, then Danny's a Christmas turkey. “’m sorry. I didn't mean to ruin your day.”

“Who said anything about ruining my day? Did I at any point today accuse you of ruining my day? Did I?”

“No, but—”

“But nothing. If you had ruined my day, I would have said so. I would have informed you of that fact in no uncertain terms. Tell me, have I ever before had qualms in the past about reproaching you for days that you, personally, have ruined for me?”

“No, but—”

“I rest my case. Here,” Danny grabs the thermometer from where he left it on the night stand and sticks it in Steve's mouth. “That ought to keep you busy for a little while, and has the added advantage of letting me know how you're really doing. Hold that under your tongue, and don’t talk.”

Steve sighs noisily through his nose –no mean feat given how congested he sounds– but he seems content to follow orders so long as Danny doesn’t go too far. The thermometer doesn’t have anything good to say, however, and Danny scowls at it, worry twisting his stomach into uncomfortable knots.

“You, my friend, don’t know how to do anything by halves,” he tells Steve a little irritably. “You’re officially in seek-medical-help territory.”

Steve shakes his head, wincing at the movement. “Be fine. Just gonna sleep it off.”

“Yeah, that hasn’t exactly helped so far.”

“Danny, please.”

And goddamn but Danny has never been able to resist anyone turning puppy eyes like that on him –unless they were suspects in a case, but that’s a whole different story. It’s a miracle Grace isn’t more spoiled, frankly. He raises both hands in surrender.

“Okay, fine. But you’re going to have more soup, and I’m going to stay and keep an eye on you so your brain doesn’t cook in your head. And before you say that I don’t have to and try to play Stoic SEAL with me, let’s just nip that argument in the bud. I’m staying because I want to, and because someone around here has to be lucid enough to make rational decisions. Furthermore, if you’re not any better by tomorrow, there will be no negotiating, no ‘please Danny’s, nothing of the sort. I will drag you to the clinic by your hair if I have to.”

He decides to take the resigned groan from his partner as acquiescence, tugs the sheets up to cover Steve a little better, smooths a hand over his forehead, and heads back to the kitchen to heat up more soup. It’s a struggle after that to get Steve to do anything other than curl up in a shivering ball on his bed. The fever’s high enough now that he’s barely coherent, and he twists away from any attempt to feed him soup or water or even more Advil, until Danny finally just slides in behind him on the bed, wraps one arm around his sweat-drenched chest, pushes the pills into his mouth and tilts the contents of a glass of water down his throat. It’s a little bit like pilling a cat, Danny thinks, remembering the unfortunate pet that got given to a much more loving family after the divorce. Gracie was sad at the time, but bizarrely, after complaining for years about litter boxes and scratched furniture and hairballs, it was Danny who found he missed the stupid creature. He runs the risk of petting Steve’s hair.

“There you go, McGarrett. All dosed up, so now maybe you’ll be able to get some sleep and I won’t have to worry quite as hard. Except that I’m definitely getting you a fresh t-shirt. Sleeping while wet is never fun. And that sounded a whole lot less dirty in my head, I swear.”

He keeps up a steady stream of quiet chatter as he strips Steve out of his t-shirt and into dry clothes. Danny’s never been one for stoic silences, and he doesn’t feel the need to start now. Steve has gone limp and pliant in his arms, letting himself be dressed and undressed much like a rag doll, as though he’s just resigned himself to putting up with whatever indignities this bout of illness is going to throw at him. Danny figures it probably has a lot to do with the fact that Steve doesn’t get sick much: when it does happen, he’s mostly at a loss because he never has to deal with it otherwise. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that Steve’s response to this is simply to curl up and wait for death or a cure, whichever comes first.

Steve doesn’t sleep so much as doze fitfully, kept half-awake by fever dreams. After watching him toss uncomfortably for what feels like far too long, Danny gets up and heads into the bathroom. He rummages until he finds a washcloth, wets it and a hand towel in the sink, and comes back to find Steve already twisted up in his sheets and muttering under his breath. He shakes his head, drags the sheets free, pulls Steve’s t-shirt –newly-soaked with sweat– off him and places the towel on his chest instead. He seats himself on the bed right by Steve’s side, using the washcloth to wipe his face, and Steve instinctively turns into his hand with a small sigh of relief, too out of it to even open his eyes properly.

“That’s it,” Danny murmurs encouragingly. “You just go back to sleep. It’ll be better in the morning.”

It’s not his first time sitting up with a sick person, but he’s much more accustomed to the sick person being a little girl. He removes his tie, pops a couple of buttons on his shirt in a vain attempt to get more comfortable. He toys with the idea of borrowing some clothes from Steve, but the idea of having to roll up cuffs and sleeves like a kid wearing his father’s clothes makes him nix the plan early on. He does find a spare toothbrush, still in its wrapping, in Steve’s medicine cabinet, and decides that he’ll just replace it if Steve makes an issue of it, which he probably won’t. Steve is many things, but petty isn’t one of them.

Steve sleeps badly, and Danny doesn’t sleep at all, the whole night through. The fever never rises past 104 at its worst, and mostly stays steadily just under 103, but that’s already high enough that Steve spends most of the time tossing and occasionally mumbling nonsense. A few times he comes awake with a violent start, eyes wide and staring at something Danny can’t see, and it takes all of Danny’s powers of persuasion to keep him in bed, shaking with fever and what looks uncomfortably like fear. The third time it happens he has to hold him down bodily until he’s calm again, and finally ends up with an armful of slightly-panicky Navy SEAL, who turns out to be a whole lot harder to calm down than a small girl.

“Easy, McGarrett!” he wraps both arms around Steve in an effort to keep him from making a break for it like a spooked horse, and after a minute or so of struggling Steve sags against him, blinking confusedly as though he has no idea why Danny’s even here, and for that matter might not be too clear even on who he is right now.

“Danny? What’s happening?”

“What’s happening is you’re sick and running a hell of a fever,” Danny shifts so that they’re not both horribly tangled together, and lets Steve lean against his shoulder. “It’s okay, Steve, I got you, there’s nothing to worry about, okay? You got it?”

“Yeah,” his partner nods, the confused expression not leaving his face. “Okay, yeah, I got it, Danny. Okay.”

“Okay, good. Come on, we’re going to lie back down now. Easy does it, there you go.”

He’s forced to lie down himself in order to coax Steve back onto the pillows, eases his arm out from under him once he’s sure he’s not going to pop right back up again, and starts wiping him down with the washcloth again in a futile attempt to lower his fever. By the time the first rays of dawn begin creeping in through the window Danny’s exhausted, but Steve is quiet, at least, sleeping in spite of the continuing fever. Danny takes the opportunity to hop in the shower, borrows Steve’s razor, and while getting back into yesterday’s clothes isn’t exactly the most pleasant feeling in the world, at least he’s clean. He helps himself to a bowl of cereal and a banana out of the kitchen, wolfs it down in record time before hurrying back to make sure his partner hasn’t seized or choked on his own tongue or something equally as dire while he was gone, even though he knows he’s seriously overreacting. It’s a bad case of flu, sure, really bad by most standards, but it’s not like Steve can’t be left alone for a few minutes.

A muffled thump from the bedroom puts the lie to his thoughts. He arrives just in time to find Steve making a futile attempt to pick himself up from where he’s apparently just taken a header onto the floor, his legs tangled in his bedsheets.

“Seriously, I cannot leave you alone for a minute,” Danny squats down to extricate him from the sheet and hauls him back up to sit on the bed. “What was so important that you absolutely had to get up before I got back?”

Steve scrubs at his face with one hand, looking disarmingly like an overtired kid, and Danny really needs to get a grip on the fathering instincts before he’s forced to abdicate any claim to testosterone he’s got left.

“I just wanted to take a leak,” Steve mutters, clearly affronted by his body’s betrayal. “Got dizzy, that’s all.”

“Okay, well, until your brain isn’t in very real danger of boiling, how about you wait for me and I’ll give you a hand?”

“I don’t need help pissing, Danno,” Steve says querulously. “And besides, people’s brains don’t boil until 106 degrees. Even then, people can survive up to 109 degrees.”

“I can’t believe you know that, let alone that you’re able to recall it when your temp is over 103, which, by the way, is already high enough to warrant medical attention. You think I can't Google things? Never mind. As soon as you’re ready, I’m taking you to a doctor.”

“Danno…”

“Don’t you ‘Danno’ me. For one, you sound whinier than my daughter. For two, you’ve had a fever of over 103 degrees for going on three days, now, and that’s really not normal. That’s out of flu territory and into potentially really serious infection territory. Don’t argue. You can barely win an argument with me on a good day.”

Steve just groans, but he lets Danny pull him to his feet and help him to the bathroom. Once Danny’s satisfied he’s not going to fall over and crack his skull open on the bathroom tiles, he even gives him a semblance of privacy, standing outside the door, though he does insist it stay open a crack, just in case. After that it’s just a matter of getting Steve cleaned up and dressed and out the front door to the car, in spite of his repeated protests that he neither needs nor wants a doctor.

“Quit bitching, McGarrett, and just do as I say for once. Spare us both the headache.”

It’s early enough in the morning that there’s almost no one at the clinic, and Steve gets ushered into an exam room minutes after they’re admitted. The doctor reluctantly allows Danny to go in as well once it becomes obvious that Steve isn’t going to relinquish the death-grip he has on Danny’s arm. He’s glassy-eyed and anxious, and Danny notes with some alarm that there are moments when it seems like he’s not quite tracking what’s going on. The doctor is a tiny, cheerful Hawaiian woman who comes up to just under Danny’s chin, and she seems to take a perverse pleasure in ordering around men three times her size using only her personality and a stethoscope. She listens carefully as Danny recounts Steve’s symptoms, asks a lot questions of both of them, and generally does a whole lot to restore Danny’s faith in the medical profession by insisting Steve sit quietly while she takes his temperature.

Her expression changes a little when she peers into Steve’s mouth with an otoscope. “Commander, are you up to date on all your immunizations?”

Steve shrugs. “Think so.”

She purses her lips. “Have you been in contact with anyone who had the measles or a measles vaccine recently?”

Danny swears volubly, earning himself a glare. “My daughter’s school just had an outbreak. We were there about ten days ago.”

“There you have it,” she says, tapping her otoscope in the palm of her hand. “I’ll run a test just to be sure, but the symptoms are classic. Looks like you skipped your measles vaccine, Commander, or else the batch you got wasn’t good.”

“Great,” Steve mutters, scrubbing at his forehead with the back of his wrist. “Getting my ass kicked by a childhood illness.”

“If it’s any consolation, your manhood isn’t in doubt,” Danny teases gently. He turns to the doctor. “So I’m guessing bed rest, lots of fluids… is there anything you can give him for this? I’ve been kind of afraid his brain is going to cook in his head, what with the fever he’s been running for three days.”

“No, there isn’t. Not at this stage, in any case. You’ll probably see the rash later today or tomorrow, and the fever will go down then,” she assures him. “If the fever doesn’t subside after two more days, or if it goes much higher, then you should come back as soon as possible. Otherwise, as you said, rest and fluids and ibuprofen or acetaminophen, whichever he tolerates best. I’ll give you a list of signs to watch for possible complications,” she adds, looking at Danny, “and which of those constitutes a medical emergency.”

Danny glances at Steve, who’s nodding off where he’s sitting, leaning against the wall behind the exam table. “That doesn’t sound reassuring.”

She gives his arm a pat. “I don’t mean to alarm you unduly. It’s more common for adults to develop complications, but there’s no reason to think a young, healthy man like your partner won’t recover quickly without any complications. It’s just a precaution.”

“Okay. How long can he expect to be out of work?”

“Another week or so, I would say, barring complications, as I said. He won’t be feeling up to much before that, I daresay, after running that high a fever for so long.”

Danny snorts. “If he had his way, he’d already be back out there, lassoing the bad guys with home made rope and hanging them off buildings.”

“I’m sorry?” her eyes widen comically, and Danny flaps a hand at her.

“Never mind, it’s a long story. Okay, Super SEAL,” he pockets the list of symptoms the doctor hands him, “you’re going straight back to bed. Come on, here we go.”

He thanks the doctor, tugs Steve back onto his feet, and settles him back into the car with a minimum of fuss, tucking a thin travel blanket around him when he realizes he’s started shivering again. “You okay if we stop for a few minutes? I’m going to pick up a few things, since it looks like we’re in this for the long haul.”

Steve sits up a little. “Look, Danny, you don’t have–”

Danny doesn’t let him finish. “Seriously, are we going to have this same conversation five times a day for the next week? Because it’s already starting to get old.”

His partner lapses into silence, punctuated only by the occasional cough, and Danny feels more than a little shitty about the tone he took, except that there’s not much he can do except let Steve stew there in wounded silence. Steve might be the one who’s sick, but it’s been a long week for Danny too. Neither of them have gotten much rest of late, and Danny has never coped all that well with sleep deprivation. He pulls up outside his own apartment, gives his partner’s shoulder a nudge.

“Hey, I’m just going to run in, pack an overnight bag. You want to come with me, or are you okay here for a couple of minutes?”

Steve shivers. “’m okay here.

Danny isn’t sure he believes him, but he tells himself it will be much faster and easier if he just leaves him to sleep in the car for five or ten minutes at most, so he makes sure the blanket is tucked securely around Steve’s shoulders, and he sprints up the stairs to his apartment, pulling out his cell phone at the same time to call the office.

He almost laughs when Kono picks up. “Doesn’t Chin ever answer the phone?”

“You know he doesn’t, _brah_. That’s the rookie’s job,” she laughs, good-natured as always. “What’s up? You sound exhausted.”

“I spent the night at Steve’s–” he rolls his eyes when she snorts indelicately, “–and get your mind out of the gutter, Kalakaua. Remember that outbreak of measles at Gracie’s school? Yeah, turns out Super SEAL doesn’t have all his shots up to date, so now he’s down for the count.”

“You’re shitting me!”

“No, I’m really not. If I were shitting you, I would have come up with something a lot more elaborate and improbable, like a rare case of Manchurian foot rot, or something.”

“Manchurian…”

“Never mind, it’s not important,” Danny moves as he talks, opening up a duffel bag and tossing in a couple of pairs of jeans, some changes of underwear, and some t-shirts. He’s not going to be at work for a couple of days at least, he figures, so he may as well be comfortable.

“You and Chin both got vaccinated, right?”

“Yeah, of course.”

“Thank goodness for small mercies,” Danny blows out a breath, puffing his cheeks. “Anyway, he’s in pretty bad shape, so I’m just putting together a couple of things and then we’re heading right back to his place.”

“You’re not there now?”

“No, I dragged his semi-delirious ass to a clinic this morning, which is how I know he’s got the measles,” Danny says, packing up his meagre supplies into a toiletry bag. “I’m going to stay with him a couple of days, just until I’m sure he’s out of the woods. Needless to say, neither one of us is going to be in, but I’ll commandeer his home computer, so if anything comes up you can send it to me there or on my phone.”

“Sure thing. Hang on, Danny.” He can hear Kono put her hand over the mouthpiece of her phone and begin talking, presumably filling Chin in on the situation. A moment later she’s back, her voice no longer muffled. “Okay, no problem, you just tell Steve to get better for us, you hear?”

“Goes without saying.”

“You guys need us to pick anything up? Groceries or meds or anything?”

Danny thinks about it for a moment. “I’m going to stop by the drugstore on the way back and pick up some essentials, but if you have time to get food, that would be fantastic. He…” he stops, suddenly hesitant to reveal just how anxious Steve was at the idea of being left alone. “I just don’t like leaving him alone for long, when he’s this sick.”

“No problem, _brah_. We’ll call first, though, make sure it’s a good time to come by.”

“Kono, you are a pearl among women. Beautiful, smart, ninja-like, and considerate.”

She laughs. “Shut up. Go take care of Steve.”

He slings his bag over his shoulder, locks the door to his place behind him without a second thought, and hurries back down the stairs. “I owe you one. Thanks.”

Steve is fast asleep in the car, twisted a little awkwardly in his seat, and doesn’t so much as flinch when Danny tosses his bag in the back seat, buckles himself in, and drives to the closest drug store. He leaves a note on the dashboard just in case Steve wakes up and finds himself alone in a strange parking lot, then hurries in to buy a few more things –most importantly calamine lotion, which he figures they’ll need before long– and returns to find his partner still sleeping, much to his relief. Truth be told, he feels like he could probably use a nap himself. Well, there will be plenty of time for that later, when Steve is properly tucked back into his own bed and dosed to the gills with Advil and orange juice.

The rest of the day passes a lot like yesterday, except that this time Danny falls asleep on the couch halfway through a re-run of Magnum, P.I. (of all the ironies), and wakens right before lunch to find Steve sprawled in his lap again, cheek pressed up against his stomach. There's no visible improvement, not really, but then it's early days yet. Part of him can't help but wonder just how spectacularly awful the fallout from all this is going to be, once the fever breaks and Steve figures out that Danny has totally been taking advantage of the fact that he was at a weak point both physically and emotionally. Sure, it kind of seems like Steve needs it just as much as Danny wants it, but that's hardly the point. There's sort of an issue of consent here, since Steve is half out of his mind with fever and not exactly making a whole lot of sense. Hopefully Steve will be forgiving about the non-consensual cuddling, once he's back in his right mind.

Danny extricates himself gently out from under his partner, and does his best to ignore the soft murmur of distress that Steve makes at the loss. After all, only one of them is lucid enough to make lunch right now, and that is definitely not Steve. He rearranges the blanket over Steve's shoulders, resists the temptation of petting his hair while he sleeps –no point in twisting the knife and torturing himself with what he can’t have – and heads back to the kitchen. There's more than enough soup leftover for Steve, and after a bit of rummaging he comes up with some tomatoes and mayonnaise and what looks like ridiculously healthy bread with twenty-seven or so different kinds of grain. Figures. Still, homemade soup and a tomato sandwich is a perfectly serviceable lunch, and Danny munches happily on his sandwich and waits for the soup to heat while pondering just what he can improvise in terms of dinner out of Steve's refrigerator contents.

He spends the afternoon alternating between prepping dinner, catching up on the paperwork that Kono forwards to him, and checking on Steve. His partner is still sicker than the proverbial dog, coughing miserably when he's not dozing, and he's too out of it to offer any resistance to Danny's more than competent administration of drugs and soup and juice. He does, however, balk at the idea of food, no matter what Danny tries to tempt him with, complaining that he'll definitely throw up if he tries anything else. Finally Danny sighs, looks outside to where the light is beginning to fade.

“Okay, fine. But tomorrow you're going to have to eat, and more than soup.”

Steve just tries to burrow further under the blanket, with limited success. There's only so much a guy over six feet tall can do to disappear under a blanket designed for smaller people, and Danny bites back a smile.

“Come on, let's move this party to your bed. You'll sleep better there.”

Steve mostly makes it up the stairs under his own power, which is pretty good considering that his fever hasn't gone down at all. He lets himself fall onto the bed and curls up on his side while Danny covers him up with a comforting pat on his hip.

“You know, I like you like this. You don't argue, don't make weird faces at me, and I haven't been shot at, hit or blown up in well over two days. I could get used to this, you know. Maybe I'll keep you sick, to make my own life better. Sort of like Munchausen by proxy, except that it would be a life-saving measure instead of an attempt to garner sympathy from others.”

Steve looks up at him from where he's been trying to disappear into his pillow. “You're doing that thing again, where you throw words together and hope they make sense.”

“You love it. Now hold this under your tongue,” he snags the thermometer from the bedside table and waggles it at Steve. “No bitching,” he adds, as Steve groans and tries to turn away. “Come on, it's thirty seconds out of your life. When I was a kid we had to hold these things for three minutes, so count yourself lucky. Open up, McGarrett.”

The results aren't any more reassuring than before, but if the doctor's right, then they've got maybe one more night of this, and then he's probably going to have to deal with an irritable, itchy SEAL instead of a delirious, clingy one. As if sensing his thoughts, Steve catches him by the wrist as he tries to get up, his grip surprisingly strong for a guy who's been running a fever strong enough to fell a horse for three days.

“Are you leaving?”

If there was any justice in the world, Steve McGarrett would never, ever have that lost expression on his face. Danny gently pries his fingers loose, and resolutely doesn't pet his hair. “No, I'm not leaving. Just going to take care of some things and then crash for the night.”

“'kay. Don't go...”

Danny snorts softly, but finds himself smiling in spite of himself. “You’re lucky I love you. I wouldn’t put up with this from anyone, you know.” The words are out before he’s even aware he uttered them, and now he could kick himself. Luckily, Steve doesn’t appear to have heard him, just keeps staring at him like he’s about to vanish into the mist.

“You’re not going?”

“Not going anywhere, babe, I promise.”

Danny had planned to sleep on Steve's admittedly really comfy couch, but that plan gets scuttled pretty fast when he comes back to check on him maybe forty-five minutes later after locking up the house and brushing his teeth to find him tossing in his bed. Shit, Danny thinks, brushing the back of his fingers against Steve's face and finding it burning to the touch.

“Steve, you with me?” he says softly, but he only gets a moan in response. “Take that as a no. Okay, hang in there. We're going to work on getting that fever down again.”

There's no real point in talking to a guy who can't hear what he's saying, but it sort of makes Danny feel better to do it, so he keeps up a steady stream of reassuring chatter as he arranges his newly-stocked arsenal of supplies by the bed. This time he's come prepared for a high temperature, and once he's managed to get more ibuprofen into Steve he sets about placing ice packs strategically —one under either arm and bringing up both of Steve's hands to hold one in place on his chest— and uses a wet washcloth to wipe his face. Steve shudders as the cold begins to seep through into his skin, and Danny places a reassuring hand on his shoulder.

“I know it's cold, but I need you not to knock any of it off you, okay? You hear me, Steven?”

“Danny?” Steve twists to look at him, reaches for him tentatively, as if he’s not sure Danny’s even there.

“That's my name. Don't wear it out,” he answers glibly, catching Steve’s hand and putting it back on top of the ice pack. “Hold still for me, babe. There you go.”

“Why's it cold?”

“It's cold because you're holding an ice pack.”

“Oh.”

Weirdly enough, the answer seems to satisfy Steve, and he drifts back to sleep almost immediately afterward. Danny, on the other hand, spends yet another sleepless night trying fruitlessly not to worry, stretched out on the bed next to his partner, just in case. He does manage to doze off a couple of times when Steve is quiet only to wake up not too long after, heart racing, worried that Steve might have worsened without his noticing. Nothing of the sort happens, though. Steve just shifts uncomfortably in his sleep and ends up tucked in along Danny's side, solid and hot from the fever. Danny pats his arm gently, though he doesn't expect any kind of response.

Sometime just before dawn the fever breaks, and Steve shoves himself even further into Danny's personal space with a contented sigh, leaving Danny to stare at the ceiling and try very hard not to read too much into what's happening. It's ridiculous, is what it is, he tells himself shortly. Clearly he's been spending too much time in the company of his partner —his boss, no less, even if Steve does mostly treat him like an equal in all matters— and it's messing with his head. Okay, maybe the fact that Steve is pretty much snuggling him right now is messing with his head more, but that's not Steve's fault. He's sick and up until not too long ago was out of his mind with fever and it's not like he can be held responsible for anything he does while he's asleep.

Danny exhales slowly, puffing out his cheeks, then carefully extricates himself from Steve's embrace and crawls out of bed. On the plus side, he's apparently not so far gone as to be entirely turned on while Steve is still so damned sick. That's probably the only point in his favour right now, which is such a depressing thought that he turns the shower to its coldest setting just on principle alone. It does serve to wake him up properly, however, and he makes short work of washing, shaving and getting dressed in order to face yet another day of spending way more time than is good for his mental health in close proximity to his partner without having work to serve as a buffer between them. He should call Chin or Kono, he thinks as he starts making breakfast. That would be the mature, responsible thing to do. Find someone else who can come and stay for a couple of days while Steve gets back on his feet, and get himself out of this situation that is pretty much guaranteed to make him lose his mind.

When he goes back upstairs, Steve is only beginning to stir under the covers. Danny puts the tray down on the night table, puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Rise and shine, princess. I brought oatmeal, and you need to eat all of it.”

He gets an irritable grunt in response before Steve carefully pushes himself up on one elbow, squinting at him in the bright light of the early morning. “Danno?”

Danny sighs. “Yes, it's me,” he brushes a hand against Steve's forehead, but finds it cool to the touch. “Your fever's gone, so you're not getting a pass on calling me 'Danno' anymore. Sit up and eat your oatmeal.”

“Not hungry,” Steve scrunches up his face, and damn if it isn't kind of adorable, with his hair sticking up in all directions. Danny manfully doesn't run his fingers through it.

“Too bad, you're going to eat anyway.” He picks up the spoon, dips it in the oatmeal, and waggles it meaningfully. “Either you eat it by yourself, or I'm going to spoon-feed you like a toddler, and neither of us wants that, do we?”

Steve mutters something under his breath, but he sits up, still a little clumsy from being so sick before, and accepts the bowl with barely a wobble.

“Attaboy.”

“Not a dog, Danny.”

“No, dogs have more common sense and listen to simple directions. Crankiness aside, how are you feeling?”

Steve shrugs. “Okay, I guess.”

“Right. And now how about an answer that isn't a lie?”

Steve pauses to swallow a mouthful of oatmeal. “What do you want me to say, Danny? I've been sick as a dog for three days, speaking of dogs. So I still feel kind of crappy and from the sound of it I'm going to keep feeling crappy for a while longer.”

Danny sighs. “I'm trying to help, here.”

His partner just keeps eating his oatmeal.

“You were a lot more agreeable when you were delirious. Cuddlier, too.”

Steve stops eating. “What?”

“Nothing, it's fine. Finish your food.”

“I'm really not that hungry,” he makes a face. “I could use a shower, though.”

“Bath, and keep it tepid. Otherwise you're going to pass out and neither one of us wants me to have to drag your heavy, naked ass out of there.”

“Wow, you're bossy.”

“It's what I do best. Here, lift your arms,” Danny liberates the mostly-finished bowl of oatmeal and tugs on the hem of Steve's shirt.

“I can undress myself, Danno,” Steve mutters, but he lifts his arms up obediently enough, so Danny doesn't bother correcting him as he pulls off his shirt. He doesn't know what expression he makes then, but it must be a doozy because Steve makes Aneurysm Face at him, which Danny hasn’t seen him make since his sister arrived in town. “What?”

“Uh, looks like the rash is setting in, right on schedule.”

Steve looks down at his chest and stomach, already covered in a bright red rash. “Fuck,” he sighs.

“The bright side is that apparently it doesn't itch nearly as badly as chicken pox,” Danny tries to console him.

“I'm going to take a shower,” Steve pushes past him with an air of injured dignity, padding in bare feet toward the bathroom. “I promise to keep it tepid,” he says with obvious distaste, “but I am not taking a bath!”

“Fine!” Danny calls after him. “But you fall and crack your skull and I will have I-told-you-so's lined up until you're ninety!”

The rest of the morning feels strangely familiar. Steve still settles on the couch, though he's a lot more alert than before. The rash is pretty widespread, all over his chest, stomach and part of his back, and creeping up slowly to cover his face, too. It would be funny if he weren't obviously so miserable. Danny consoles himself with the thought that he's on the mend, at least that's what it feels like until he catches Steve repeatedly pressing a couple of fingers just behind his ear, as though he's trying to relieve pressure there or something.

“What's up, babe?”

“What?” Steve looks over, a little startled, which is weird.

Danny makes a sweeping up-and-down motion. “What's with channelling Uhura there?”

“My ears are blocked, or something. It's fine.”

Danny rolls his eyes. “Again with the fine. You and I have very different definitions of the word, my friend. Do they hurt?”

He gets a sheepish look at that. “Um.”

“So you've got an ear infection, which the doctor told us could happen. You didn't think you should mention that?”

“The doctor what?”

“Oh my God, you're going to make me repeat everything I say, aren't you? I'm getting flashbacks to talking with Grandma Williams when I was a kid,” Danny throws up his hands in surrender, then talks louder. “Why didn't you say anything?”

“I thought it would go away on its own.”

“You thought –I honestly cannot believe you. For a grown man capable of killing people using nothing but a piece of chewing gum and a paper clip, you are remarkably obtuse at times. Come on, we’re going back to the doctor to get you a proper prescription.”

“What?”

Danny sighs, makes sure he’s staring Steve in the face, and enunciates clearly. “Doctor. Now.”

“But–”

“No buts! Get your attractive ass in gear, babe.”

It’s both easier and harder to get Steve to the doctor when he’s not half out of his mind with fever. Easier because Danny doesn’t have to act as a makeshift crutch, and harder because Steve is a lot less cooperative when he’s feeling better. Still, they manage a relatively painless visit to the clinic where the tiny Hawaiian doctor clucks disapprovingly, wags her tongue depressor at Steve chidingly for not telling Danny right away that his ears hurt, and prescribes a course of antibiotic ear drops. Steve sulks.

“Can’t I just take pills?”

Danny rolls his eyes, accepts the generously-offered free bottle of drops, and chivvies him back to the car. “Ear drops will not kill you, Super SEAL. I will even help you put them in, if you hold still.”

“What did you say?”

“Oh, this is going to get very old, very fast.”

After a while, Danny begins to suspect that Steve is deliberately messing with his head by making him repeat everything three or four times. Eventually he resorts to writing things down on a a legal pad, scowls when Steve mocks his handwriting and stalks off to the kitchen before he hits his partner with said legal pad as hard as he can.

“See if I ever stick around and mop your fevered brow ever again,” he mutters, dropping the pad on the kitchen counter, the pen following it with a clatter, consoled by the knowledge that at least Steve can't hear him and start feeling guilty. “The things I do for love,” he says forlornly to the casserole he's making from scratch, just to make sure Steve has something to eat besides soup, the ingredients available courtesy of a quick visit from Kono and Chin in the late morning.

“Danno?”

He starts at the sound of Steve's voice coming from right behind his shoulder, heart skittering like a frightened rabbit. “Jesus, Steve,” he turns to look up into his partner's face, which is a comical blend of red from the measles rash and blotchy pink patches of calamine lotion. Or it would be comical if his expression wasn't so damned earnest. It's some sort of variant on I'm-Worried-About-You-Face that Danny doesn't recall seeing before. “You okay, babe?”

Steve nods. “I, uh...” he pauses, licks his lips. “I just wanted to say I'm sorry.”

Danny sighs, barely refrains from rolling his eyes. “Didn't we discuss this?”

“No,” Steve makes an impatient gesture. “I mean, not about that. I mean, yes, I... look, I'm really glad that you stayed, and... and everything. I wanted to apologize for, you know,” he waggles a hand vaguely at the notepad on the counter. “I wasn't trying to be an ass.”

Danny grins. “Yes, you were. It's fine, Steve. I'm willing to take it as a good sign, that you're feeling good enough to deliberately screw with me again.”

Steve ducks his head with that shy smile that makes Danny's heart do really unhealthy things, rubs the back of his neck. “Okay. I just... I was worried that I, uh, hurt your feelings or something.”

“Hurt my feelings? What am I, a twelve-year-old girl?” Danny feigns indignation, wishing there were more than a couple of inches separating them. It's one thing to have Steve sick and asleep in his lap, quite another to have him looming over him like this, looking at Danny like he's trying to bore holes through his skull.

“I heard what you said,” Steve says, and Danny's heart tries to make a hasty exit through his stomach.

“That's a first for today,” he says lightly. “It's not like you've heard anything else I've been trying to tell you. Which kernel of wisdom did you manage to retain, then?”

And then Steve's hands are on his shoulders. “I heard what you said last night.”

Danny swallows hard. Shit. “Look, Steve, I don't —you shouldn't— I never meant to—”

Steve kisses him. Just puts both hands on either side of his face and presses his lips to Danny's, and God help him Danny moves closer, presses up against him, parts his own lips when he feels Steve's tongue. It lasts forever and not long enough, until he's breathless and shaking and weak in the knees. He pulls away first, touches two fingers to his lips a little disbelievingly. He wonders if he's not dreaming, but the smell of burning casserole tells him that he's not nearly that lucky. He opens his mouth, closes it, for once at a loss for words, finds Steve grinning at him.

“What?”

Steve grins even wider. “You have calamine lotion on your face.”

“You sure?” They both know what he's asking.

Steve makes a show of wiping Danny's chin, displays a pink-coated finger. “I am absolutely sure. Actually, it turns out I have some unexpected time off work...” he adds, looking expectantly at Danny.

“Do you, now?”

“I do. So, you know, if you need some convincing, I have a lot of spare time that I am perfectly willing to spend proving it to you.”

Danny's mouth manages to go even drier. “Okay, then. In which case, let me just say that I am more than open to having you state your case.”

After that, he only barely manages to remember to turn heat off under the casserole before it burns.


End file.
